This chapter is based on The Credit Card Prank, a classic ZUG.com prank that I wrote one week in 2002. It was the prank that put ZUG on the map, getting passed around approximately five million times. To me, it was no different than the stuff I had been writing for years, but it got picked up by a number of high-profile Web sites and wire services, and the rest is history.

I knew it was big when my parents went on vacation to Australia, and found a front-page story about the prank in Sydney's largest Sunday newspaper. Then they finally told me they loved me.

I followed up the success of The Credit Card Prank with The Credit Card Prank II, and The Visa Prank. Despite all the attention these pranks have received, the credit card companies have made no changes to their useless "security" measures. In fact, I got a message from an employee of one large credit firm who thought my pranks were hilarious, and wanted to reprint this chapter in the company newsletter.